The European Week of Regions and Cities (#EURegionsWeek) took place from October 9-12, 2023 in Brussels. This is the European Union’s largest annual event on, among other things, cohesion policy and EU funding for environmental activities.

During this event Dr. Pawel Grabowski and Katarzyna Zdanowska promoted our model of professional home care, which we have been implementing over the past years in Podlasie. They talked about how dependent, terminally and chronically ill people in rural areas can be effectively helped and their caregivers supported on October 10, 2023 in Brussels as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities.

During the panel “Reinforcing long-term care – tapping into the opportunities of innovation,” Dr. Pawel Grabowski and Katarzyna Zdanowska presented recommendations for professional home care developed during the project “To give what is really needed”. In the competition of the European Commission within the framework of the European Program for Employment and Social Innovation, the project was among seven awarded projects in Europe and as the only project in this category from Poland. The innovation is implemented in partnership with the Podlaskie Voivodeship represented by the Regional Center for Social Policy in Bialystok, the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and the NGO Support Center in Bialystok.

We propose a new approach to professional home care for the terminally ill and dependent people. The innovation involves the creation of an assistance network that takes into account, among other things, neighborhood help, informal groups, public sector organizations and NGOs. One important element of the innovation is the creation of a new job position – the Dependent Care Coordinator, whose job is to match the help flowing from the network with the real needs of patients. The model is so universal that it can be easily replicated in other parts of Poland and Europe